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by oceanlogged



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-05
Updated: 2012-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-03 02:14:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceanlogged/pseuds/oceanlogged
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock returns after 3 years absence.  He and John begin the long process of trying to begin again the life they used to have together, but both Sherlock and John have changed.  In the search to reclaim what they used to have together, they must explore something new.  Sherlock first person POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Return

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place after the events at the end of the second season of Sherlock, so spoiler alert for that. Also, this story is a bit of an experiment in first person POV for me, so any feedback is excellent. Enjoy!

            I consider 221 B Baker St.  The room I am in now is a doubtful shade of green, the ceiling stained by smoke (three years is ample time to pick up old habits), and a few tender rings where leaks have sprung over the years.  My suitcase is packed, and has been for the past week.  One doesn’t really need much to get by.

            Ideally, life would return to how it had been before Moriarty; I, after all, need no time to readjust myself into my life at 221 B Baker St.  It is the people around me, who comprised my interactions in that life who may make this a difficult transition.  Of course, there is Mycroft, but I’m sure he knows already that I’m still alive.  Predictable.  He’ll be good for handling paper work, legal issues that come with being declared legally deceased for three years.  Lestrade.  I’ll have to establish that I’m still most definitely alive to him, but he’ll be glad of the help.  They’ve kept the police work up reasonably well considering, but they’ve missed a few things.  Red herrings.  The pearl earring, the dead cat.  Those are solved as soon as I can sit down and explain them.  Lestrade won’t be a problem.  Mrs. Hudson’s already rented the flat back out, but the couple living there won’t be long.  A hasty move, with no disposable income to supplement their living.  I should be able to move back into the old flat by the end of the month with John.

            John.  I take my bow in hand, and I pluck a few strings of my violin, checking for tune. 

            John will be a problem. 

            We should be able to resume life as usual together; there is nothing to impede this action except for emotional ramifications.  How to handle them.  I loosen my bow, and set it aside.  I’ve waited three years to come back, to start life again where I left it with John.  But he has moved on in my absence. 

            No.  His life has moved on; he has not.  The evidence is everywhere.  The brief time he spent going back to his therapist.  Leaving Baker Street, and yet stopping to look down it from afar, almost weekly.  Visiting the grave yard where my supposed corpse was buried, at first daily, but now only on holidays and periodically in times of psychological imbalance.  Why people think that the dead care what kind of flowers you leave them, I cannot fathom.  Still, it is not an unappreciated gesture.

            It is obvious that John has tried to replace me, perhaps to forget.  A string of girlfriends, all more needy than the last.  A way to take care of someone who in turn can provide a relationship, a sense of meaning, and physical comfort.  He always was preoccupied with the farer sex, but never like this, never so purposefully.  Perhaps as a distraction, an attempt to fulfill his sexual needs, but never with such early and eager emotional investment.  Thus, the conclusion.  He is attempting to replace me with a new partner in his life, seeking fulfillment in the delusion of these romances. 

            The problem: I am not a lost man who needs to be replaced.  Although John is not aware of this and cannot be blamed for his ignorance. Can he?  Not sure, a more motivated mind would have caught the subtle way that the machinations of his life have been being guided, regardless, he appears to be utterly unaware.  I get up, setting my instrument back in its case, the place where it belongs, and I pull on my wool coat.

            Once outside, I hail a cab.  “221 Baker St.” I say, and sit back on the leather seat.  Emotional ramifications.  I have the ability to play a character, if necessary, to appease or play on people’s emotions.  Usually acquaintances of victims, occasionally a suspect in interrogation.  The people I must interact with in my work, in my family. 

             I’ve never had to play a character with John.  Now is not a situation desperate enough to start.  After all, if John was a person who I had to treat and deal with as any other, I wouldn’t bother with any of this.  No.  There’s nothing left but to attempt to reenter his life, and to wait and see what emotional impact I must deal with to reach this end.

             “Stop the cab,” I say, handing the driver (middle aged, Caucasian, divorced) his fare and stepping out onto the pavement.  I have seven minutes; I begin walking East.  It’s astounding how little the world changes in three years.  Even when changes do occur, people tend to work their lives and habits around it, to find a way to stay in stasis.  In the full implications of overall identity, John has tried very hard to remain in stasis.  But he’s changed. 

              Three minutes.  What are the possible outcomes of meeting with John again?  Joy, or sorrow?  Considering the physical evidence, one would immediately think that John would be glad for our reunion.  But it could just as easily be seen as a betrayal of trust, an abuse of our relationship.  This meeting has the potential to hold rejection, I speculate. The cement of Baker St. underneath the soles of my shoes is familiar, grounding in a way.

               I walk down Park St. to a mustard yellow apartment building.  Tasteless.  The search for the opposite of any triggering phenomena leads to desperate changes, doesn’t it?  I ring the buzzer. 

              “Yes?”  The landlady answers the door.  Late 50s, although she tries to dress younger. 

              “Yes, I’ve got a parcel for Mr. Watson, he’s got to sign for it,” I say, softening my voice to the plea of those in customer service.  There it is again.  The act.

              “Oh, yes, end of the hall there,” the woman says, patting her dyed blonde hair.  I nod to her and stride down the hall.  I hear the woman’s door closing, as I stand in front of the door to John’s new flat.  How to attend to any emotional reactions?  Can’t be planned without more knowledge, there’s no point.  Either a reunion or accusation of betrayal.  I suppose I did betray a certain trust, in a way. 

              My hand knocks on the wood of the door.  There has been a conversation going on inside of the flat, over the phone if I’m not mistaken, that stops.  Footsteps.  I knew those footsteps when I first met John, sure yet off balance.  The limp.  Things have changed, haven’t they.  The door swings open, and there stands John, mobile muffled against his chest, a tan sweater, tea stained (he spilled when I knocked, has grown unaccustomed to visitors), same trousers (a newer pair of his usual brand), ink stains on his wrist (he’s been journaling, although his blog has been put on hiatus)-

             John.

             Dealing with unexpected emotional ramifications. 

             He stares at me, I can see him thinking, trying to keep up.  His mobile falls to the ground. John turns away from me, walking back into his flat.  I pick up the mobile and follow John into the flat, closing the door behind me. 

             “John?” I ask, needing information from him, anything. 

            He is leaned over the porcelain sink in the bathroom beside the front door.  He’s staring at it.  In shock.  I place his mobile on a desk, where a journal lies open, biros arranged neatly beside it.

            “If that’s you,” he says, still refusing to look directly at me, “Jesus, that’d better be you, this’d better not be…” he looks up at me, unable to communicate his thoughts.  I cannot fathom what is going through his mind, so I wait, silent, gathering information.

            “You’re dead, and I’ve gone mad.” 

            There is a tone to his voice; desperate.  Pleading.  I walk towards John, slowly, giving him time to accept, until I stand a couple of feet away from him.  Close enough for comfort in reality, far enough to keep from overwhelming him.

            “I’m back.”

            I take his hand in mine.  The hand I’ve held, the hand I know.  I had a plan for this, but feeling the crevices of his hard worn hand beneath mine, remembering its texture, the shape of the muscles that make it, I stand unsure for just a second.  Emotional reactions.  John comes forward suddenly, and grabs me around my torso.  A hug.

            “Sherlock.”

            “Mrs. Hudson’s got the flat up for rent again,” I mention after a minute.

            “No she hasn’t,” John says, holding me firmly yet carefully.

            “No, but she will in week.”  John finally lets go as I say this.

            “I was hoping you’d say that,” he says. “Sherlock… well, I don’t suppose you need me to tell you what I’ve been up to the past few years.”

            “No,” I reply, letting myself smile.

            “And I don’t suppose you can tell me what you’ve been doing.”  John smiles back to me.  “Well.  Where are you going to stay for the next week?“

            “Here,” I answer the question posed within the question said aloud, come John.  Say what you mean, you know I’ll figure it out anyways.

            “There’s only one bed,” John says, amending the offer.

            “Fine.”  I don’t mention that if we do sleep in the same bed, perhaps he’ll wake up less often, like on the nights he spends sleeping beside any of his array of past girlfriends.  A week will be plenty of time for observation. 

            “Well,” John starts.  He seems to still be at a loss.

            “Order in?” I suggest.

            “Yeah, I’ll just,” he says, beginning to ramble, “right.”  He turns and goes to the phone, keeping me in the corner of his eye.  I sit back on the couch and check my phone.  One new message.  Damn.

            _They say blood is thicker than water. –Mycroft_

            I observe John for a minute, and type a reply.

            _Would hate to bother you with the paperwork so early in the week. –SH_

The rest can wait, including Mycroft.  I accept a point that I had previously noted, but reserved for closer observation.  John.  It seems I owe him a great debt.  I’ve spent the last three years on old bed frames, without proper heating or company.  Yet watching John up close, he is not the man I left.  He’s thinner by approximately 23 pounds.  Emotional stress seems to have lead not only to weight loss, but also to extreme sleep deprivation.  Evidence is in observation of darkness around the eyes, and the nervous ticks and blinking of someone who has accumulated a long term sleep deficit.  In this case, I am guilty.  It’s better than an early death, but there’s something paining about seeing John so.

            Second obstacle for reintroduction of myself into my old life with John: returning John to his physical, mental, and emotional balance from before when I left.  We cannot resume our old life together with John as he is now, and I feel somehow that I owe it to him.  My phone vibrates, text message.  I check the screen: Mycroft.  I don’t bother to read it.

            _Can’t talk now, busy. –SH_

            “So, food should be by in about half an hour,” John says, walking over to me and sitting beside me on the couch.  “Sherlock, I just can’t, how-“

            “John,” I stop him.  “Don’t ask questions of me that I can’t answer.”

            He leans back in the seat and rubs his face with the palms of his hands, a stress reaction.  “Right.”

            “I need to get my things,” I say, getting up.  Half an hour should be ample time.  John rises with me as I go for the door.

            “Why didn’t you bring them with you?”

            I pause before I answer this, considering the merits and demerits of honesty.  A part of my mind is still consumed by the lies I told John before, on the rooftop.  But he knew, even then.  It’s decided.

            “Because I didn’t know if you would want me anymore.”  There’s a discomfort to this honesty.  John stares at me and I see emotions cross his face, what was it, remorse? Guilt? Regret?  What for?  Words said before my faked death?  Or is it words that weren’t said?  Curious.

            “All’s forgiven,” I tell John, and he seems to calm.  Would he say the same to me?  Not sure.  Things are going well now.  I turn to the door to take a step, but my mind pauses me, pulls me back.  I’ve forgotten something.  I turn my head back to John, and I hold out my hand between us.  John’s lips tense together for a moment, and then relax.

            He takes my hand.


	2. Impulse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick update because I had some time on my hands. Enjoy!

                I lead John into the flat, everything as I left it.  I open first my bag, and then my violin case, then close and lock both.  I turn, picking them up, and I see John looking around the room. 

            “It’s,” he starts, then pauses a second.  “It’s terrible really.”  I let my lips curve up a bit at the corners.

            “It’s inconspicuous,” I reply.  “No need to stay longer than necessary.”  John looks at me and smiles and we walk out of the drab building back to where the cab waits in the street.  We sit together in the back, and I spend the drive to John’s flat watching him, gauging his emotional state as our interaction progresses.  There is tenseness to John that has only been noticeable since our initial meeting.  In the past years, he has lost his posture, sinking down from the stiff backed military man he was.  Now, he appears to be something in between, a man driven back to his military posture but out of practice, and no longer in place in it.  He glances at me every so often, and taps his hands on the seat.

            “There’s not a lot of room,” he says, as I pay the cabbie, and we reenter the building.

            “It’s only temporary,” I reply, setting my violin down on a chair and my bag on the floor.  “I’ll contact Mrs. Hudson tomorrow.”  I consider this.  “Perhaps you should come with.”  John looks at me with raised eyebrows, and lets out a laugh.

            “At her age, yeah, I think I’d better come with,” he said, shaking his head slightly and laughing.  He gives me a familiar smile.  “I’d almost forgotten how… well.  Should I put the kettle on?”  I nod curtly, and John leaves to the kitchen.  I turn to his desk and see his notebook there.  I can hear the taps in the kitchen flowing, and in a second I palm the notebook and put it in my pocket.

            “I’m going to see if the food’s come,” I yell to the kitchen, and John looks out from the doorway, a little surprised.

            “Oh, right.”  I flash him a smile and stroll out of the door, closing it firmly behind me.  I note that the front door squeaks when opened and closed, and I head out of the building.  Outside, I fumble to take out the tan notebook, flipping to the page it rested on when I had arrived. 

            _Spoke with Harry today.  She’s pushing me to meet with Anne again, but I don’t think so.  Hospital work was busy, I stayed late but we still didn’t get all the patient charts finished when I left.  Working like this is why I can’t have a proper dating life, but I think that right now I’m getting more out of the work._

            I skim the page and flip back a few, to an entry one month and 4 days earlier.

            _Laura at work today  asked me to dinner.  I took her number and told her I’d think about it, I’m used to being the forward one, but it’s nice for a change.  To let someone else take charge for a while._

            I huff a little, flipping back further.  New Year’s Eve.  John’s always been sentimental; New Year’s would have been a day of reflection and self-examination for him.  Footsteps.  I hold up my hand, a handful of pound notes neatly folded in it.  “That’s for me,” I say, looking up at the boy holding the takeout and walking up the steps to the building.  He takes it and gives me the bag and says something, but I’m flipping through the notebook searching for the date I’m looking for.  But I need time and solitude to go through John’s journal.  I pocket it again, and I take out a cigarette, my hands shaking, and I light it.  I inhale deeply, my mind smoothing as the nicotine hits my blood stream, and I see a camera to my left wink at me.  Mycroft.  I finish the cigarette and go back to the flat.

            Entering, John is waiting for me inside, two mugs of tea on the tabletop, and he’s thumbing through the day’s paper.  A text message alert goes off in my pocket, but I ignore it.  Not today brother.  He’s already gotten out plates and forks, so I set the bag on the table, unwrapping the knot at the top with one hand while my other sets John’s journal back on the desktop behind me.

            As we eat together, I notice the same tension as before.  There seems to be a need to clear the air, although neither of us seems willing to address it.  John clears his throat, looking up from his plate, a bit of noodle on his fork.  “So, what’re you going to do now?” he asks.

            “Now?” I ask, unsure of context.

            “Well,” John clarifies, “everyone thinks you’re dead.”

            “I’m not,” I reply, taking a bite.

            “No, but Lestrade isn’t exactly going to let you back on a crime scene without one hell of an explanation,” John says.  “Unless, Mycroft…”

            “Mycroft will help me with any official paperwork issues,” I say, “and nothing else.  For some people, three years is too short a time to be apart.  As for investigations, Lestrade has no reason to keep us from helping them once they realize I’m alive.”  It should be simple.  The entire act of reintegration should be so simple, there’s no logical reason for it not to be.  But here I am, watching John push food about on his plate and calculating his stress levels based on caloric intake.  Low caloric intake; high stress levels. 

            “John, would you like to watch some telly?” I suggest, looking for a calming agent for John.  He relaxes a little.

            “Yeah, put something on,” he says, getting up and carrying the dishes to the kitchen.  I go to the couch and sit, putting on something.  People are being judged and voted off for arbitrary reasons.  I flip the channel.  A police drama, trite.  I flip it again.  Sitcom.  Obvious opening plot set up based on meaningless social obligations and expectations.  It’ll do.  John sits down beside me, a foot or so away.  We watch a middle aged white man try and make up for forgetting his wedding anniversary.  I watch John from the corner of my eye.  He only passingly watches the television, but he’s more relaxed than he has been today.

            I take a drink of tea; it’s gone luke warm, but I find myself drinking it anyways, my mind wandering from my observations as I taste it.  It’s the brand of tea that John has always made, cream and sugar.  Baker Street come to my mind, case after case typed away on John’s laptop, cup of tea always by his side.  John’s tea.  I take another sip, letting the taste rest on my tongue, and I set down the mug carefully, my hands shaking a bit.  I take a nicotine patch from my pocket and apply it to my forearm, swallowing.  The sweet after taste rests in my mouth, and I turn to look at John. 

            His head is leaned back on the couch, asleep.  I lean forward, watching his breathing, smelling the Earl Gray on his breath, and I kiss him gently on the lips.  I get up from the couch immediately, reaching for my coat and taking the cigarette packet from it.  Empty.  I crumple it and throw it to the floor, and I throw on my coat and go out the door. 

            The Tesco is only 5 minutes away.  Round trip of 10 minutes; I won’t be missed.

            John was fast asleep.  There were no signs that he was awake or aware of any of what occurred.  He doesn’t know.  I pay for my purchase and pull out one of the cigarette’s before I’ve left the store, lighting it as I cross the threshold.  I go through two on my way back to the flat, but it does little to slow my thoughts.  I felt nostalgia.  After prolonged absence, familiar sensations brought forth memories.  There has been a certain adrenaline rush to the day.  The reassurances of companionship.  Chemical reactions, leading to feelings of emotional intensity.  Once we’ve grown accustomed to one another’s company again, things will fall back into place.  I take one final drag on the cigarette in my hand, and I abandon the idea that it will bring me any relief, flicking it away.  I return to the flat, where John sits in front of the telly, awake.

            He must have been only lightly sleeping.  How lightly though.

            “I’m thinking of going to bed,” he says as I take off my coat.  No reaction.  He doesn’t know.

            “Alright.”

            “You staying up?” he asks.

            “No.”

            “Well,” John says, “ I’ll see you in the bedroom.  That sounded bad didn’t it?”

            “Unimportant,” I reply, going to my bag.  John disappears into the bedroom, while I take out my toothbrush.  I shift about some clothing, before realizing that, like most of my possessions, I abandoned my pajamas when going into hiding.  I go to the sink and begin brushing my teeth.  The bedside lamp in John’s room casts a dim light out of the doorway, and then clicks off into darkness.  I spit and slowly walk to the room, turning off the main flat light and pausing outside the door.  I can hear John’s breathing, the slight rustle of bed sheets, all past the closed doorway, waiting.  I take off my shoes and slowly walk in.

            As my eyes adjust to the light, I find my way to the bedside opposite John’s.  I slide into bed, fully clothed, and stretch out.  I would normally just sleep in my pants if this had happened, but I am intensely aware of my earlier impulses, and don’t.  I wait in the darkness for a while, and begin counting John’s breaths.  As I watch and listen I shift the pillow beneath my head, and notice that John is sleeping on a couch cushion.  I inhale.  The essential human odor of John Watson comes to me from the bed sheets, the pillow underneath my head, and the man asleep beside me.  The olfactory sense is one of particular strength in recalling emotions and memories.  A woman who is chopping garlic may be given news of her mother’s death, and years later be chopping garlic only to find herself hysterically crying, although she may or may not know why.  The strength of these recollections can be overwhelming, often rivaling or greater than the original emotional state imitated. 

            Somewhere in my mind I calculate this fact out, as I turn my head deeper to John’s pillow and breath in.  I remember the sights and sounds of Baker St. late at night.  Us both dripping sweat from a chase, laughing.  Warmth.  My blood flow increases, causing body heat and slight muscle tension. 

            I roll over, away from John, staring at a wall in the darkness.  Memory recall of this sort is temporary.  Routine of interaction can cancel it out.  I need a case.  A distraction.  How to find freelance work without broadcasting my identity. 

            Beside me, John shifts in his sleep, rolling an arm over which comes to rest on my side.  He mumbles something.  Muscle tension.

            Distraction.

            I get up from the bed and leave the room, closing the door quietly behind me.  I turn on the light, and look for John’s laptop.  As I look across the desk, my eyes fall on the journal.  I can hear John roll over in the other room, mumbling more.  I turn from it and see the laptop on the table. 

            I take the laptop and sit on the couch, opening a search engine and scouring recent news articles for criminal reports.  I open another window to cross check them with police reports.  Not strictly legal.  On a whim, I open the old email account as I start to note the day’s criminal accounts.  An email opens on the screen immediately.

            _We need to talk._

            I suppose I have to see him eventually.

            Beside me, a discreet booklet calls my attention.  I give up on the computer, putting it aside, and take John’s thick brown journal in my hand.  It’s been worn smooth and soft with time.  I caress the cover, water damaged, simple yet practical.  Old, but far from useless.  I turn open the first page.


	3. Old faces

            I thumb past the first few blank pages and open to the first handwritten page in blue ink. 

            _I need to start working again.  I need something to do, and I don’t think I can write the blog anymore.  I’m just not –_

            The bedroom door creaks slightly, and I quickly slide the journal between my spine and the couch.  John stands in the doorway in striped pajamas.  He stares at me a moment and walks over to the couch and sits. 

            “I should’ve known you’d be up,” he says, leaning back on a cushion, his eyes half open.  “Looking up homicides?”

            “Must do something to stay in practice,” I reply, leaning back further against the couch, feeling the hard indent of the book against the couch.  John blinks, sitting up a bit and looking past me.

            “Is, are you smoking again?” he asks me.  The empty cigarette packet on the floor. 

            “Yes.”  John looks at me, closing his eyes a minute and reassessing me, trying to wake himself up. 

            “Not anything else though?” he asks. 

            “No,” I reply.  John sighs, relaxing a bit.  “There was a short time a year ago.”  John looks at me and then closes his eyes, head resting on the back of the couch. 

            “It’s good to have you back,” he mumbles.  I watch John beginning to fall asleep beside me, arms folded.  I begin to type on the laptop again, amusing myself while I wait for John’s sleep to become more regular.  His insomnia appears to be an unpredictable element, but it will take observation to know.  I realize that the case of John Watson is the most diverting case I’ve had in years.  Not in the sense that it is dangerous, or of national import.  Perhaps because John has always held the strange capacity to surprise me.  Although the life he has lived the last three years without me has been pedestrian, John is a remarkable man. 

            Once I’m sure, I put the laptop down on the table in front of me.  I take the journal from behind my back.  I open it, watching John’s face over the top of the cover.  Dates, dates; I find it.  New Year’s Eve.  John has entered the REM sleep pattern.  I look down and begin to read.

 

            _New Year’s.  I thought about going to go and see Mrs. Hudson tonight, but decided not to.  I’m not ready to be around anyone tonight.  All of those people who spend time with me because they think I’m depressed.  The pity they give, buying my lager for me, trying to introduce me to nice girls (not that I haven’t enjoyed their company)._

_I reread the blog sometimes.  I still have stories to tell about Sherlock.  I never do though.  Then I go and look through this journal, think about the last couple of years.  Sometimes I wonder why I bother writing anymore._

            I close the journal and get up to put it back on the desk.  Face up, turned to a 15 degree angle.  It is 2 in the morning.  I sit beside John on the couch, and I allow myself to begin relaxing.  I turn my head and watch John sleep, and I wonder if he will wake up before me.  I close my eyes, considering this new look into John’s mind, and I let my own mind slip away into rest.

            I hear the sound of rustling about.  I open my eyes, and it’s daylight, albeit early.  I lift my head up, sitting up on the couch, and I start to look for the noise.  An adjacent room gives the distinct clink of dishes being moved about.  The kitchen.  John.

            I get up.  My clothes are wrinkled, but there’s nothing to be done about that now.  I redo the top two buttons on my shirt that have come undone over the night.  Tuesday.  I’ll see Mrs. Hudson today and we’ll be able to leave this abominable place.  A step in the right direction.  I can begin rebuilding my collection of personal possessions that I’ve had to do without, pajamas amongst other things.  My skull.  I wonder if it’s still around somewhere.  Has John gotten rid of my possessions, or has he kept them?  Pain, or sentimentality surely won out.  Either way, I need a violin.  The instrument I’ve been making do with is subpar at best.

            There’s a clink to my left, and I look over to see a cup of coffee set beside me.  John sits down on the chair to my left with his own.  He appears tired; when did he wake up?  Historically, the presence of a companion at night has allowed John to sleep better, but it appears that this was not the case last night.

            “Good morning,” he says, taking a sip.

            “Is the paper here?” I ask.  John shakes his head without looking.  He’s been awake long enough to know that the paper hasn’t come yet, at least one and a half hours.  By the looks of it, this is routine for him.  Navigating my own sleep deficiency has never had any of the difficulty that others seem to have with it.  “We should head to Baker Street around ten,” I say, “early enough to catch Mrs. Hudson.”

            “Right,” John says.  “How exactly are you planning on breaking the news?”

            “I’ll go and tell her,” I reply.  “If Mrs. Hudson can see me, it should be clear.”  John raises his eyebrows just a bit.

            “Sherlock, maybe I should go first.  Soften the blow.”

            “Why?”

            “Because Mrs. Hudson is a little old lady, and you’ll give her a heart attack.”  I stop and consider Mrs. Hudson.  John went through, and is still probably suffering from a period of shock at my reappearance.  Ah.  “Can you even rent out a flat?”

            “I don’t see why not,” I reply.

            “Well, you don’t have any papers anymore do you?” John says.  “Do you still have a bank account?”

            “Of course I have one,” I reply, “what do you think I’ve been doing for three years?”

            “Sorry, I just don’t really know,” John says.  “I don’t know what’s been going on with you.  What do you have to do?”

            “I don’t have to do anything,” I explain.  “I can do whatever it suits me to do, but there’s an incredible amount of freedom in a fake identity.”  The doctor recommendations for insomnia include regular exercise, increased intake of water, and chewing on or drinking a tea brewed out of the valerian root.

            “I’m going to check for the paper,” John says, getting up.  I nod. 

            Perhaps it’s the companionship.  John got up from insomnia last night once I had left the bed.  He then joined me on the couch and fell asleep there, as opposed to returning to bed.  The facts seem to point towards it, but it’s hard to know this early.  If I can sleep in bed with John it may act as a surrogate for the women he spends the night with.  Better rest.  But how to continue to enact this once we’ve returned to Baker Street?  Perhaps Mrs. Hudson can help; she always was a determined matchmaker.  She would enjoy it. 

            Outside, the sun has risen.  I check the time.  8:30 am.  We’ll leave in an hour.  I wonder if there’s a way to Baker Street that avoids any CCTV cameras.  No.  I’m sure he’s already guessed that that’s where I’ll be headed first.  John walks back through the door.  John moves to sit down on the chair, but I get up.

            “Let’s go,” I say.  John looks from the paper to me.

            “Sherlock, it’s still a bit early.”

            “We’re walking.”

            We leave, walking down the sidewalk together.  John has a little trouble keeping pace with his limp, but he doesn’t mention it.  He must be aware that I’ve noticed the limp.  As we walk down the street, the sun rises into early morning.  I unbutton my jacket with one hand as we walk in response to the slight warmth in the air.  John huffs a bit in exertion.  Exercise.  I walk a little bit faster.  John keeps pace.  We will momentarily be in front of 221B Baker St.  I turn to my right with a final step.

            “I’ll wait,” I say, stepping to the side of the doorway.  John stands, breathing a little heavily, and nods.  He knocks on the door, and goes into the building.  Our building.  I wait outside, and I light a cigarette.  Useless things.  Hardly calm the nerves, and have no stronger effect than a brisk walk.  Noise inside.  Voices.  I inhale smoke, and take out my phone.  I begin to browse the news.  The only recent deaths have been car crashes, all related to inebriation.  How disappointing the world can be sometimes.  Inside the building, shouting.  Could be an unexpected assault?  John can handle himself.  Reliable.  I leave the news site, and instead go to a paper on the use and degradation of lead in paints and housing structures before the 1920’s. 

            A door clicks open beside me.  “Sherlock,” John says from inside the building, “maybe you should come in.”  I follow John, closing the door behind me, and we walk to Mrs. Hudson’s flat.  I open the door and stride in.

            Mrs. Hudson sits in an old wooden chair, weeping.  She looks at me with wide eyes, and cries out, smudging her make up with a tissue as she tries to wipe away her tears.  “Mrs. Hudson, John and I are looking for a flat,” I announce. 

            “It’s true!  It’s true!” she said, “I didn’t think, but… Sherlock!”  Mrs. Hudson steps forward, still teary, and hugs me around my midriff (I can only hope that Lestrade doesn’t decide that indeed, hugging me is the only fit way to welcome me back).  She lets go after a minute, smiling and sitting down, taking deep breaths at John’s suggestion.

            “Boys, I, I,” Mrs. Hudson says, still trying to calm herself, “I’ve got the flat rented out already.”

            “Yes, the couple from Bristol,” I reply, “We know-“

            “Oh no,” Mrs. Hudson corrects me.  “They had to leave, illness in the family.  A man has rented it out, he’s coming by today to go through the lease and schedule a move in.”  I stop.  John glances at me questioningly.

            “But you haven’t advertised?” I ask, how could anyone know about the flat yet?

            “No, he just came by out of the blue and asked about anything I had available,” Mrs. Hudson explains.  “I told him he was lucky, I just had one.”  A man coming by and asking about vacancies the day after a flat is open, but before it’s been advertised. 

            “When did this man say he was coming by?” I ask, pacing to the hallway and looking out to the front door.

            “Oh!” Mrs. Hudson reacts with a small hop in her chair and gets up.  “He should be by any time now, I need to put the kettle on.”  She gives me and John a lingering look and smiles and walks to the kitchen.

            “Well, what now?” John asks me. 

            “We’ll get the flat,” I reply, and John doesn’t follow me, I can see it in his eyes.  “Not in the way I’d like to.  But we’ll get it.” 

            “Sherlock, sorry, but are you-“ He begins, and stops, looking behind me out to the hallway.  There’s the sound of the front door opening and closing (it must have been unlocked), the latch clicking back into place. 

            “Hello John.  Hello brother.”

            “Hello Mycroft,” I reply.


	4. 221B Baker Street

            “I see you’ve found my little concession,” Mycroft says, dropping his umbrella by the door and walking into the room. 

            “Yes, concession,” I reply, “I’ll let you know when-“ my instincts react to the violent movement, and “John!”

            John stands beside me, shaking his right hand out, and Mycroft is on the floor.  John has an excellent Right-hook.  This must be the beauty of a true relationship, as expounded upon by romance authors since the beginning of time.  John can tell exactly what I’m thinking.  “Sherlock died because of you,” John says, he’s not sweating, but he’s worked up, emotional, angry.

            “Yes, I can see that,” Mycroft says, prostrate on the floor.  John rubs his temple for a moment, and holds out a hand to help Mycroft up.  Mycroft waves it away and picks himself up.  He dusts off his suit with a hand, and then moves it up to feel the damage on his jaw.  “I assume that that will be the last outburst of the day?” 

            “Did he know?” John asks me now.

            “I don’t know, did you?” I ask Mycroft.

            “I’m afraid we were both in the dark,” Mycroft says to John. Mrs. Hudson walks back into the room, tea tray in hand.

            “Oh!”

            “It’s fine Mrs. Hudson,” John says, “Sherlock and I will take the flat.”

            “Oh, but, John, this is,” Mrs. Hudson begins reasoning.

            “Holmes.  Mycroft Holmes,” Mycroft replies.  “Sherlock, I’m having your things sent over this afternoon, so be in.  We need to speak.”

            “No time now?” I ask.

            “No,” Mycroft replies, glancing at John.  “I’ll be by later when there’s been time to… adjust.  Thank you Mrs. Hudson, you’ll find the next year’s rent for the flat in an envelope on the desk next to the door.”

            “You can’t stay for just one cup?” Mrs. Hudson asks, ever the gracious hostess. 

            “Sadly, no.  Sherlock, John, Mrs. Hudson,” Mycroft addresses us each, then turns and leaves.  I follow him to the door and he steps out.  I pick up his umbrella from where he left it, and hold it out to him.

            “Ah,” he says, taking it.  Mycroft looks at me, then casually through the door behind me.  “You know he would do anything for you.”

            “Yes,” I answer.

            “I’ll be by later, I hope that we can sit down and talk,” he says.  “And I hope that we can put the past in the past.”  A bit cliché, don’t you think Mycroft?  He gives me a curt government nod, and turns and walks to a waiting, unmarked black car.  The door closes and the vehicle leaves.  I close the door behind me, and walk back to the sitting room where John and Mrs. Hudson have served the tea, and I sit down and take the cup at my seat. 

            After an hour of idle chat, Mrs. Hudson takes John and I up to the old flat.  “Well, there’s a bit of black mold gathering in the corner there,” she says, pointing to a corner of the ceiling.  “I’ve had to replace the wallpaper in a few places, but it’s the same pattern,” she continues, gesturing around the newly cleaned room.  “Now, will you boys be around today?”

            “Yes,” I say.  “There should be a car coming by later with my things, please tell us when it comes.” 

            “Oh yes,” she says, looking between the two of us.  “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”  John is walking around the room, shaking his head at various spots of significance.  Memories, I’m sure.  I myself, see nothing remarkable in the room.  Anything that may have been noteworthy has been covered up or replaced.  Gunshot holes in the wall were plastered over, inexpertly, and covered in fresh wallpaper.  I walk to the kitchen, of course nothing in the kitchen would hold any clues to our existence here years ago.  Too perishable. 

            “I can’t believe it,” I hear John wondering aloud.  The refrigerator has been replaced with a newer model in the last year, and there’s a new electric kettle.  I throw open the cupboards: new cutlery, new plates.  Outside the room, John is laughing about something to himself.  Probably some remembered event called up by visual recognition.  I walk back to the sitting room, and go to the bedroom. 

            A large mattress lies in the center of the room, bare of covers and blankets.  Here too the characteristic cracks on the ceiling have been plastered over.  John’s laptop is not here.  No case notes.  No ink marking on the pillow from note taking late at night.

            No.  Nothing is the same. 

            “Old bedroom?” John asks me, grinning, wandering in the doorway.

            “Old, new,” I reply absently.  “Mycroft is coming back later.”

            “Yeah,” John shuffles his feet a bit.

            “Don’t,” I say.  “You saved me the effort.  I haven’t seen Mycroft hit like that since I was five.” 

            “Fist fight in the backyard?” John asks.

            “No,” I reply, “a boy was holding my face in the mud.  Mycroft threw the first punch.”

            “Oh,” John says.  I remember it well.  There seems to be a difficulty with forgetting those childhood traumas everyone has, no matter your control over the information your brain chooses to store and to forget. 

            “We had a fairly brief stint at public school,” I reply, filling in the blanks for John.

            “Things were bad?”

            “Yes.” 

            We leave the room.  I have no desire to stay and consider the many remarkable things that happened in the flat that are now plastered over and forgotten.  John has already begun to arrange things.  I check the time.  Three o’ clock.  “John, should you get your things?” I ask.  I’m beginning to chafe with all of this standing around and making pleasantries.  I need distraction.  No casework until Lestrade is made aware of my presence. 

            “Yeah, I guess I’ll do that,” John replies.

            “I’ll call you a cab,” I say, pulling out my mobile and dialing.  “Ten minutes,” I say, and John nods.  He glances at me, rubs the back of his head and opens his mouth.  He breaths, and closes it.  Something he wanted to say.  Perhaps he suspects my motives.  I take my cell phone and begin scanning new reports, as much for something to do as for a way to avoid John’s looks.  For some reason, I feel compelled to wander into the kitchen, and so I do, and I sigh a little bit when I’m away from John’s stare. 

            “I’m heading out, be back in an hour,” John says from the other room, and I hear the front door open.  When I hear the click of the lock closing, I immediately pocket my mobile, take a bread knife from the cutting board beside me, and head through the living room to John’s bedroom.  It is as bare as my own room, a few trinkets here and there.  Would John be more comfortable in a new environment, or a familiar one?  It’s a commonly held belief that times of unrest and upset are those when it’s easiest to change habits and lifestyle.  Current psychology heavily supports this hypothesis.  So.

            I duck underneath the bed, and investigate the oak frame.  The boards are water damaged, but holding up well.  I pick three center boards that support the bed frame as a whole.  I begin sawing at the sides of the first board, creating a weakened center point.  Satisfied, I move onto the next.  The serrated edge is too flimsy to make this work easy, but on short notice, it is the best option.

            When I’m finished with that chore, and have swept the sawdust out a back window and washed the knife, I go to my own room.  I search the floorboards for one, one in particular, and pry it up.  Empty.  I go to the board beside it, and spring it up.  Here.  Here it is.

            Carefully I remove a smooth wooden box.  It is the size of a pencil case, and the wood is splintered on the bottom left corner, but apart from that, it is immaculate.  I run my fingers along the front edge, and lift, and it falls open.  Waiting for me.  Inside of the box, there is velvet lining, and cushioned in the velvet are three unused hypodermic needles and a brown glass bottle.  I take out the bottle, and look at it through the sunlight coming in from my window.  There are traces of powder left, not enough to be of use.  I take it to the window, open it up, and pour it out to the street.  I close the bottle, set it back in the velvet, and put my case back together and beneath the wooden floorboards.

            I get up, and realize that I’m sweating, slightly, and I search my pockets.  I light a cigarette, and inhale.  Deeply.  I have an estimated 15 minutes. 

            The front door opens in the other room.  I press the floorboard into place with my foot, and turn, and there’s Mycroft, standing in the doorway, looking at me.  I’m pleased to see his jaw has a red tinge to it where John hit him earlier.  He looks down to where my foot rests, and then back to my face, one eyebrow raised. 

            “Thought I’d send someone to help John pick up his things, seeing as you left him to do it alone,” Mycroft says. 

            “I’ve been busy,” I reply.

            “I can see that.  Sherlock, how you abuse your roommate is not important right now.  We should sit.”  He leads me to the living room and sits in the armchair.  I follow, and stand.  “Have you ever heard of a man named Sebastian Moran?”

            “No.”

            “He was an associate of Moriarty,” Mycroft continues, “a sniper.  He was there during the… pool incident.  We have reason to believe that when he knows you’re still alive, he’ll come looking for you.”

            “I’ve been hiding the last three years,” I begin to say.

            “So you should be the first to realize,” Mycroft says, cutting me off, “that your own vulnerabilities are not the issue.”  I don’t move for a moment, and then take the cigarette out from between my lips and crush it in an ashtray. 

            “Are you having him tracked?” I ask. 

            “When we can,” Mycroft says, “but he’s like you.  He knows how to disappear.”  I look out the window.  There’s a pile of luggage beside a car.  Mycroft’s assistant is watching the cabbie help unload the trunk.  A violin case.  Outside the cab, there’s John.  He helps the cabbie finish unloading the luggage, and pays him.  I see Mycroft follow my gaze from the corner of my eye.  “I’ll keep you up to date on Moran, but I need you to not make waves.”  I stare as John disappears from view into the building, and I listen.  Uneven footsteps, weighed down more than they’re used to, climb up the staircase. 

            “Hello,” John pants, coming in the flat with his arms loaded down with luggage.  “I’ve missed something.”

            “No, just saying hello,” Mycroft smiles, he looks to me, and to John as he turns to leave.  “You should consider your priorities,” he calls to me, bothering me for the last few seconds he can before leaving.

            “What was that about?” John asks me. 

            “There’s a professional assassin planning to kill us,” I say.  “Let’s get dinner.”


	5. Chores

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's gotten to the point in this fic where I've had to write out ideas and whatnot on paper just to get it all straight in my head (first time I've had to do that). Here's to hoping that it holds up as I continue to write.

            When we’ve finished eating, John takes the plates to the kitchen.  No leftovers. 

            “So, what did Mycroft say?” he calls from the kitchen.  Water runs in the sink.

            “He’ll tell us if they can find Moran,” I say.  “He’d rather I stayed locked in my room until then.”  The luggage and moving boxes litter the floor of the flat, but Mycroft’s assistant appears to have used a vague labeling system.  I open a cardboard box marked ‘Misc.’  Inside rests the remains of my favorite human remains.  The skull is broken.  The left eye socket is traced with a hairline fracture that has broken off a section of the cheekbone, and the corner of the jawbone is shattered.  Fragments litter the bottom of the box.  I put the box back on its pile, a bit annoyed.  I go to my violin case and open it to see if Mycroft has been the end of all of the fragile things I own. 

            It rests in the velvet, as though waiting for me after the years.  I take it out, and pluck the strings carefully.  I begin to tune the instrument between my fingers.

            “Well, we can’t exactly go around London like we used to,” John says, back in the room beside me.  He sits on the couch.  I finish tuning and begin to tighten the bow.  A couple of hairs snap under the strain, and I trim them back accordingly.

            “We should arrange to see Lestrade soon,” I say.  I rosin the bow.

            “Sherlock, you can’t just go out there,” John says.  I put down the bow.  “Not with enemies like this.” 

            “Would I be safer spending another three years locked up, while Mycroft’s men chase their tails?” I ask, with a little bit less self-control.

            “Sherlock,” John says, and I look at him.  “Please.  One month.  Give him one month.”  I don’t believe that John will accept a no in this situation, although he doesn't seem angry.

            “One,” I relent, and I take my bow and begin playing scales.  I can see John lean back in his chair out of the corner of my eye, but I continue playing.

            Cases.  Three years of solving cases from poorly reported news articles, and equally insufficient rumors.  I begin to play a tune, nothing at all really.  G scale crescendos and decrescendos; meaningless.  But John sits and watches me, and I feel compelled to continue.  John’s recuperation is my top priority.  One month. 

            I move fluidly from random strums of the strings to Bach, and my muscles delight in the hum of the bow in my fingers.  The vibrations of the strings, and the echo of the melody in the hollow of the violin.  Playing a rental violin holds value in practice, and little else.  For muscle and auditory pleasure, my own violin can be matched by few, and none can be found in the local shop and taken without down payment and identification check.  John is flicking through the paper, and subconsciously tapping his index finger on his right hand to the piece I am playing.  I play like this for a while.  John begins menial tasks as I play, rearranging boxes and bags for sorting in the morning.  I eventually check the time.  Eleven.

            “I’m going to bed,” I announce, putting my violin back in its case and loosening the hairs on my bow.  John looks over to me, blinking, surprised?  Not sure.  But I put away the bow and lay the case on the couch, and I go to brush my teeth.  It’s not worth it to search for pajamas, so I go to my room without them.  Mrs. Hudson has come by and put the sheets and blankets on my bed already.  I undress down to my pants, and lay down in my bed with only the desk lamp on. 

            John pokes his head around the door frame to look in.  “Good night,” he says, and I nod and turn out the lamp.  As soon as he has left, I turn on my mobile and begin searching the news.  I skim absently, until I hear John walking unevenly to his own bedroom.  Rustling of cloth.  Then the creak of a bedframe resting into place.  I go to an online medical journal, and I continue to read.  Nothing.

            In fifteen minutes, a muffled yawn.  I begin to become more engrossed in the article I’m reading as I consider whether the bedframe should have been weakened more.

            45 minutes.  John momentarily fell asleep, for 20 minutes, but he’s reawakened.  He is rolling around.  Too awake, or uncomfortable?  Bed sheets rustle.  John’s physical discomfort, for whatever reason, seems to be high.  Movement. 

            Crack.

            “What the hell?!”

            Crack.

            Success. 

            I continue my reading, listening to the sound of John presumably getting up, taking the blankets off of his bed, and inspecting the frame.  Footsteps.  “Shit.”  The shifting of wooden boards.  Mattress creaking.  Is he getting back onto the bed?  Moving around the bed, attempting to get comfortable.  More mattress creaking, and footsteps on the floorboards.  The sound of cloth being drug across wood.  I get up and I walk to the living room. 

            “John?”

            He’s laid out his blankets and sheets on the couch, striped pajamas, cushion replaced with a pillow.  “I need a new bed,” he says as I come in.  I sit down on chair beside the couch, and I pick up John’s laptop.  I open up the internet browser and I start clicking through it. 

            “Use mine, I’m staying up,” I respond, opening my email.  John lays there a moment longer, staring at the ceiling.

            “Not sleeping tonight?” He asks me.

            “No,” I reply.  I begin typing nonsense into the search engine, to stress this fact.  John sits up and looks to me, and I continue to stare at the computer screen, watching him in my peripheral vision.

            “Ok,” he replies.  “See you in the morning.”  He gets up, taking his tan pillow, and walks to my room.  I listen to his footsteps as he leaves, one falling only slightly later than the other now.  Curious.  John lays down in my bed, and I sit back to do some actual reading.  I continue, no longer distracted, for as long as I feel I need to.  On BBC news, there’s a suicide case involving one Benjamin Lasset.  Worked in public broadcasting, left a fiancé and no children.  Bullet wound.  One thirty.  I close the laptop and set it aside.  I walk to John’s room. 

            Two of the three boards that I weakened are splintered underneath the bed, and a third one that I had not intended.  There’s a novel on John’s bedside table, but apart from that he seems largely unpacked as well.  I reach below the book, and I open the top drawer.  John’s gun.  I close it, knowing that it’s loaded without needing to check, and I walk out of the room to my own. 

            John is lying underneath the blankets, rolled to one side.  His breathing is regular.  He is facing away from me, but I imagine that he looks the same as he did on late nights, when he would fall asleep sitting on the couch while I researched.  I step into the room quietly, and stand beside the bed.  No movement of recognition.  It isn’t taking a liberty to sleep in one’s own bed.  I push aside some of the blankets and sheets, and I lay down beside him, pulling them back up.

            I turn on my back, and close my eyes.  To my right, John shifts a bit, and settles back in sleep.  I roll onto my right side beside him, letting John’s body heat help me get comfortable.  I don’t need to be, but it helps me succumb to sleep sooner.  The 8 inches or so that separate us are warm, and I close my eyes again.  I can feel my pulse rising. 

            Tomorrow I’ll find my pajamas.  The familiarity of Baker Street is still new, and my state of mind has yet to adjust.  It takes only days to create an unconscious habit, but exponentially longer to break one.  I am no longer used to sharing my bed with anyone, but time will remedy that.  As in most ways, John is my antithesis in this respect.

            The warmth between myself and John Watson is comfortable.  I move a little closer, and stop.  His hair smells tonight, when did he take a shower?

            I stop, and begin going over the Bursten case in my mind.  It was solved a year ago, but I had it done in two weeks.  I go over the evidence in my mind, and start to relax.  Left shoe kicked off, serrations with a sharp implement on the neck.  I see the crime scene in my mind, an old, musty flat, and I step around the body, considering it.  No weapon in sight.  Little struggle implied. 

            John rolls over beside me onto his back, and I can almost touch him. 

            I carefully get up, put on trousers and my coat, and leave the flat for a smoke.

            I return, and the bed is uncomfortably hot.  I move to the edge away from John, and I fall asleep.

            John is up the next morning, only a few minutes before me.  Early.  I open my eyes as he gets out of bed, rubbing his neck.  I sit up, and slide to the edge of the bed, and get up.  “Sherlock,” John says, a little surprised.

            “Morning,” I reply, going to the dresser drawer.

            “Sherlock, where are your clothes?” he asks.

            “Do you sleep fully clothed?” I ask, as I pull out a pair of trousers and begin to dress.

            “I,” John starts, and he pauses, smiling and shaking his head.  “I’ll make breakfast.”  He leaves the room, as I button my shirt.  I join John in the kitchen and eat the eggs he’s prepared, with coffee. 

            “Unpack today?” he asks me, looking around at the cardboard boxes.  I nod, as I look over the paper.  I get up and go to the living room, and I take out my violin.  I begin to play, but my mind is wandering.  I have nothing to focus on.  The sound of the playing leaves me, as I feel the overwhelming thought processes fill my mind.  Sebastian Moran.  Potentially deadly, inside the country, and likely to be tailing John’s movements.  Mycroft has said that he is likely to approach either John or myself, but where is the evidence.  It matches with likely motivation, but there is no physical proof.  Unless there is.  Mycroft wouldn’t make conjectures that he’s unsure of. 

            I put the violin back, and see John in the room to my right.  He’s started putting boxes in piles, sorting them.  “Sherlock, how’ve you been… keeping yourself busy while you’ve been gone?” John asks me.  I join him in opening boxes and walking them to my room and around the flat.  Old cutlery in the kitchen, cotton bedclothes, and the necessary mundane objects of life.

              “Crime cases are always reported on,” I reply.  “And tying up loose ends.”  There’s a vibration, the sound of a mobile phone going off on silent.  Although technically, all sound is vibrations.  John sets down a box and reaches down for his phone.  He looks at me apologetically, and I nod.  He opens the phone.

            “Hello.”

            I order the necessary things of mine in my room where they belong, clothing in the drawers, new sheets on the bed.  John’s talking to someone on the phone in the other room, with many a “No, I remember”, and “I don’t, well… fine, fine.”  Harry.

            “Sherlock,” John calls from the other room, phone put down on the table.  I lift my head to listen.  “I’m going out to get a new bedframe, and, well, I told Harry that I would see her tonight.”  He pauses, but I don’t reply.  “I’ll… I’ll see you later.” 

            I take out my cell phone and I open up a new text message. 

            _Moran.  -SH_

            The front door of the flat closes, and I walk to the window and wait. 

            _I’ll need longer than a day.  John leaving for the night?_

            I close the phone without reply, and I watch the street.  John walks out of the building, and begins heading south.  New bedframe.  I could close the shop by calling in a bomb threat.  No.  Too obvious.  There’s a knock on the door.

            “Hello?”  Mrs. Hudson.  “Oh, is it just you Sherlock?”

            “Mrs. Hudson,” I reply, turning around to face her.  “I was hoping you’d come by.”  I let my eyes glance around the room quickly.  There.  “I need you to call a builder to take care of the black mold.”

            “Oh, you know, I will,” she replies.  “Should I tell them to come by this week?”

            “Better make it today.”  I smile, and Mrs. Hudson nods, agreeing, and I take out my phone and search the name Lasset. 


	6. Confinement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. I think it's fair time to warn you all that I think I'll be upping the rating of this fic at some point or another, for explicit content later on (just as an early warning).

            I have no reason to be as frustrated as I am.  It’s like an itching in my mind.  Boredom.  It’s simply boredom.  John returns home at 11:30, no doubt for my benefit.  I put aside my mobile, and the incoming call that I had received 5 minutes ago warning me of John’s arrival.  He puts his coat on a hook, and takes off his shoes, one at a time.  John is fumbling with the laces.  He is drunk.

            I get out of bed and walk to the door.  “Harry?” I ask. 

            “Oh, fine, the usual,” John replies, smiling at me.  I give him a slight smile back.  He suddenly opens his mouth and stares over my shoulder.  “Sherlock, what’s happened to our ceiling?”

            “Mold,” I reply.  “Mrs. Hudson insisted on the remodeling.” 

            “Oh,” John says, nodding to himself.  I wait for him to mention the woman I know he was with tonight.  “Sorry, I had a bit to drink; I think I’m going to lie down.”

            “Alright,” I reply.

            Approximately six hours ago, I contacted a tail to keep me updated on John’s evening.  I considered following him myself, but didn’t.  Spying on John and breaking my word to him all in one night seemed like it might be a bit much. 

            First the bedframe, a plain oaken frame.  Sturdy, not too large, average.  Next, John went to a pub and indeed met with Harry for drinks.  With Harry came an anonymous woman.  Physically attractive although average, apparently a good conversationalist.  John decided not to spend the night with her, which appears to have been a possibility given John’s past with women, but there was an exchange of phone numbers and assurance of another date.  I could look her up if I’d been there.  She must have something to hide.  A husband.  A work life that won’t allow for a relationship.  I go back to bed, waiting for John. 

            “Anything interesting in the news?” he asks, while brushing his teeth.

            “Possible murder, made to look like a suicide,” I reply.  “Not sure yet.”  John nods and goes to spit.  He returns and drops unsteadily onto his side of the bed, getting under the blankets with me.  I look over to John, and I see a trace of lipstick on his neck just beneath his left ear.

            “Sounds interesting,” John replies.

            “Doesn’t matter,” I say.  “There’s little I can do without having access to more evidence.”  John has relaxed beside me, and is getting ready to go to sleep.  I turn out the lights obligingly, and say goodnight, and return to the futile case of searching for information on the suicide.  John falls asleep with the help of the alcohol, and whatever the woman he saw tonight had to offer, and I don’t want to look at him as I think of it.  I stay up, and read medical reports.

            John wakes up the next morning at 4:30, and then again at 8:40, when he gets up.  We spend the next two and one half days without incident, and without import.  John doesn’t leave the apartment, although I can see that he is becoming just as claustrophobic as I am.  There’s only so much bad television that one can handle.  The boxes are sorted.  John found the skull and asked me about it.

            “Just bin it,” I reply, twiddling with my violin, although I still feel annoyance when I see it.  I begin to play my violin obsessively in the small space of the apartment, and I stop bothering to leave the room to smoke.  John opens the windows, but says that he doesn’t mind. 

            “When’s the builder going to come and finish?” he asks me eventually, oh, yes, the hole in the ceiling.  “The bedframe’s coming in tomorrow.”

            “Don’t know,” I reply.  “You know how hard it is to schedule these things.”  I’m not sure he believes me.  No.  Maybe?  John’s thoughts have become alien to me over my absence; looks that I used to be able to read in a second are foreign.  Perhaps I need to learn more of what he’s been doing the last few years.  I like to think that my work is thorough if nothing else, but we are both aware that John is not all that he appears on the surface.  That’s the problem.  The surface is all that I can see.  I can’t read those changeable emotions, those actions that come from the man inside in a moment of need.

            I drop the Lasset case.  There is nothing more I can do to investigate, and it would be counter-productive to try to start making theories without more evidence.  There are no unexplained deaths in the news, although I fancy a few cases of theft that were solved with much more trouble than needed. 

            My hypothesis appears to be accurate.  John’s sleep schedule is more even.  I observe him getting up roughly once or twice a night.  He is sleeping an average of seven hours.  I stay in bed mostly to observe John, and get up often to use the computer, or play something on my violin.  My own sleep schedule seems to be suffering strangely enough.  I’m accustomed to losing sleep over time, but a severe deficit must be made up eventually, and I seem to be unable to sleep next to John as I used to.  I amuse myself to pass the night time, much as I have the past few years, but I can feel my mind beginning to lose some of its precise control as my sleep deficit builds.

            “What’s on the news?” John asks me, sitting beside me on the couch with a cup of tea.  I am watching the evening report, perched on the edge of the seat.

            “Nothing,” I say, my voice coming out quite irate.  “A woman in Cardiff has invented a new type of baby doll, and some children were caught with chocolate bars in their pockets in a Tesco.  Dull.” I get up and stalk to the kitchen.  I start going through what we have in the fridge and pantry.  Bread.  I could cultivate bread molds and try to separate and categorize them.  What worthwhile information would that provide?  I swing open the cupboards.  Colored plates and white.  Over time, does the color effect mood as it does in one’s general surroundings?  Human minds equate different colors of edible substances differently.  Would a red patterned plate change taste perception of food when paired with opposing colored foods?  No, no, silverware.  I start pulling open drawers, forks and knives jangle about, what type of metal are they?  Mrs. Hudson’s fine silver is a silver plate over a cheaper metal, but she does have several copper pots.  Copper changes the consistency of foods, particularly in the making of sauces such as mayonnaise, and in the use of raw egg whites, which is why it’s suggested to keep one separate for such cooking projects.

            My right hand starts searching the counter, sweeping across it as I inspect the silverware.  “John!” I yell, and then look over to realize that he’s come to the kitchen.  “John, I need cigarettes.”

            “Yeah,” he agrees.  “Sherlock, are you alright?”

            “No,” I reply. 

            “Sherlock, I’ll go out tonight to do the big shop,” John says, “what else do you need?”

            “Just get me cigarettes, and nicotine patches,” I say, turning to the fridge.  Eggs.  Milk, cheese, ground beef.  At some point John leaves.  I should have noticed when.  Why didn’t I notice?  I take my violin and I begin to play.  What’s the use?  I have nothing to think over.

            John.

            Weight ratio is not changing yet, but that will be a long term result.  Sleep habits are rehabilitating to regular hours, much closer to what he used to have.  What’s wrong?  What am I missing?  I am offering all of the things I used to, companionship, a return to our old lifestyle, I’m sharing the same bed with the man, and yet he still leaves when he can.  Is it John’s sexual needs?  Why is he so compelled to leave?  No, one thing is missing.  The cases.  The midnight chases.  Perhaps he’s missing exactly what I’m missing.  But to keep John happy, I can’t leave to pursue any cases, and the news isn’t good for anything.  What else.  The door opens, and I decide to finish the tune of thoughts before putting my violin down. 

            I turn and John is putting away the groceries.  He looks up at the sound of silence, as I put down my violin, and I feel a twitch of warmth, pride perhaps, at the look in his eyes, as though they already missed the music.  I can’t remember what I was playing, but John seems to have little preference for one piece that I play over another. 

            “I always think I’ve forgotten the sound, when I hear you play again,” John says, looking away, and busying himself with the shopping.  “Well, it’s, you know.  I bought your cigarettes.”  He wipes the corner of one of his eyes with the back of his hand.  I set down my violin in its case, and walk beside John, and take the cigarette packet.  They’re wrapped gold tin foil, like a gift.  I open it and I take one in my mouth and light it with a match.

            “Thank you John,” I say.

            “I’m headed out tonight,” John says, as he folds up the empty bags and puts one to line the bin, “I said I’d check up on Harry.  I won’t be out too late.”  I inhale deeply.

            “Have a good time,” I say.  John blinks, looking a little surprised.

            “Yes,” he replies, “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”  He leaves, and I take my violin back in my hands and pluck the strings in nonsense.  I stand in front of the window and watch John go.  I take out my mobile and send a text out to a tail.  I add an extra stipulation to the regular message:

            _Photo needed._

            I wait, and start flipping through the news again, something I missed, anything.  After a half hour, my mobile vibrates on the table and I check it.  Photo message.  It is a moment of conversation, wide smiles on either side.  No Harry in sight, just John and the woman.  

            The woman appears quite plain, average clothes for her age (36), subtle jewelry on her fingers.  The photo is too grainy to get any real information, but I would judge immediately that she works in a middle management position, most likely at some independent small business judging by her clothing choices.  Nothing.  Nothing else.

            I begin to pace around the flat.  John said two hours.  One and a half hours have passed.  I go to John’s room.  The broken bed frame is disassembled and leaned against a wall, with the mattresses and bedding.  Everything else is the same.  John has left his gun in the drawer once again.  Beneath it is his journal.  I take it in an instant, and I flip it open.  It almost feels like cheating, I consider as I begin paging through the days, but I don’t stop.  Mundane descriptions of daily events, the occasional veiled remark hinting at emotional instability.  Pages are ripped out in two places in the journal, between four and seven respectively.  I read, as I wait.

            _Left the bar.  Not headed back yet._

            The text message reaches me an hour later, followed by another containing the address that John and the woman went to.  After another two hours, I stop checking my phone for the eventual message that John is returning.  I lose any enjoyment or interest in reading John’s journal around this time, and I go to the kitchen.  I begin to type out a message.

            _I’m back.  Would like to see you tonight, help with L.  Convenient?  -SH_

            I take a nicotine patch, and I wait for a message, whichever one comes first.


	7. Gurugu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Fourth of July!

            At 11:43, John comes through the door, inebriated.  I don’t look up from my mobile, but lay stationary on the couch as he takes off his shoes and his jacket.  “Anything?” John asks from behind me.  I continue to stare at my phone. 

            “No, Mycroft,” I reply.  “Bed?”

            “I thought I’d stay up a while,” John replies.  He comes and sits beside me on the couch.  Drank tonight, but held back, not drunk; “tipsy” would be an appropriate description.  John turns on the television.  He flips through the channels, and settles on a sitcom.  I get up, and walk into my bedroom, still watching my phone.  It vibrates.  The message I’ve been waiting for.

            _Tomorrow night where we last spoke?  Are you sure?_

            _Yes. –SH_

            I return the message, and close the phone, and I sit down on my bed.  John flips off the television, and enters the room, carrying a book.  He sits beside me on top of the covers.  He starts reading.  I feel a bit of irritation, and I pick up his laptop from the bedside table and open an internet browser.  My left hand begins searching the table, but it’s bare. 

            “Here,” John says, handing me a half empty packet of cigarettes.  I take one, and I light it.

            “When did Harry start wearing perfume?” I ask.  John shifts a bit, uncomfortably.

            “Sherlock, I was on a date,” John admits, “We met when you were… gone.”

            “Oh?” I ask, breathing in a lungful of smoke.

            “Yes, and I’m seeing her again on Sunday,” John says.

            “You can’t, Sunday is when Mrs. Hudson is coming to check the heating,” I mention, off the top of my head.  It can be arranged.

            “Sherlock, I like Mary, and I’m seeing her again,” John says.  “You always get this way when I see women.” 

            “Well, maybe if you’d stop seeing women, then it wouldn’t be an issue,” I say, irate with the conversation, with Mary, with the long hours in boredom and solitude.  I take a drag on my cigarette.

            “Women?” John asks incredulously.  “I’ve got a life outside of you, Sherlock.  I have, for years!”  I take the cigarette packet, and I step over the side of the bed and walk out of the room, feet falling heavily.  “Sherlock!”

            “I need a smoke!” I yell back, throwing on my coat.  John comes out of the bedroom.

            “Sherlock, you can’t expect,” John’s saying, almost yelling, but I’m opening the door, don’t need shoes, socks are fine, “You left me Sherlock!”  I stand in the open doorway, my hand still on the knob.  John is breathing unevenly behind me.  “You let me think you were dead!  For three years!  Not a hint, not a whisper, nothing!”  I stare at the floor, the steps, the black cotton socks on my feet. 

            “Yes John.  I did.”  I go down the steps, and out of the front door of the building.  The cigarettes have been crushed and bent beyond use, so I bin the packet.  It’s raining outside, and I flip up the collar of my coat.  The wet soaks into my socks, and I can feel the uneven pavement underneath my feet, like a message in braille.  No use using expletives.  There is a keen awareness to my mind, as to where I am headed, down roads and alleys that have been long kept from me.  But my mind still remembers with perfect clarity, and it is with the visual recognition that I begin to feel the thirst.  CCTV cameras turn as I walk past, no time for a disguise.  Mycroft knows.

            In a back street, apart from the general traffic and nightlife of London, I come to the outside of a metal plated door behind a nightclub ( _Gurugu_ , an institution heavily connected with organized crime, and renown for the availability of illegal substances, and prostitution).  I knock on the door.  I’m let in by one of the bouncers after a few words are exchanged.

            The back is dark, with flashing lights shining through the cracks beneath doorways to the main floor.  The floor is smooth, cement back here.  Off duty bouncers sit smoking, conversing with themselves and occasionally staring across the room at the women on duty.  One of the women tries to take my hand, to murmur in my ear, but I walk past her, to a dark wooden door with a peephole in the center.  I knock five times.  There’s a moment of waiting to the heavy bass beat of the floor next door, and then the door opens.

            I procure what I need and I leave.

            I walk back into the street, and I take a quick mental calculation of London.  There’s a hotel, The Rake, three blocks to the West and one North.  I walk there, with a quick check of the hour on my mobile.  18 missed calls.  Several text messages.  3:48 am.  I put the mobile back in my pocket. I enter the hotel, and I pay for a room.

            Mycroft will be having all of my cards tracked.  Oh, we’ve played this game before. 

            The room is clean, sterile.  Appropriate.  I sit down on the bed, and I take out my instruments and ingredients.  I can hear the vibrations of my mobile in my pocket.  4:13am. 

            John is probably somewhere in London looking for me.

            Lipstick on his neck.  Our first week together in years, and he can’t stand to spend it alone with me.  My mind involuntarily takes me back to the confrontation tonight, and I watch it happen as a third party now.  I do not want to see this.  Do I feel anger, or shame? 

            I press the needle into my arm, and find a vein. 

            I fall back onto the hotel mattress, and lay the syringe aside, my eyes closed.  With the dosage, I should have approximately half an hour of euphoria before the effects of the drug wear off, leading to severe depression and physical discomfort.  The crash.  I begin to hear a ringing noise. 

            Sebastian Moran.  A sniper residing somewhere in London, with a desire to kill me.  By association, John is in danger as well.  Where is the evidence, where are the facts? 

            The cocaine begins to hit me, and I can feel my thoughts starting to smooth, a streamlining in my mind, a deep focus that can push aside thoughts of John, of women, of Mycroft, and in my mind I see the vision of a perfect sniper.  I stand up and start pacing the room considering facts aloud to myself.  Outside, I can see the sky has lightened considerably, the sun will be rising soon, the start of a new day, I see. 

            “Sebastian Moran,” I say, stalking the room, hands in my pockets.  “He’s waited for three years, why, where?  Moriarty has been dead these past three years, why continue to wait?”  I look to the mirror on the wall, and I see a vision of myself, hair disheveled, pale, sweating.  “Why?”  I begin pacing again.  Back to the pool scene.

            “Several snipers, only one of them Moran.  Our first acquaintance.  Little else to be said.  On the rooftop, Moran was likely one of the snipers,” I continue, now cracking my knuckles as I walk, feeling for the edges of the puzzle with my mind, the way that the evidence must fit together.  I stop, and blink as a bead of sweat drips into my right eye.  I wipe my forehead, and notice that my hands are involuntarily shaking.  “He was John’s sniper.”

            There’s a banging on the door.  Too early for the cleaning service.  I go to the window, and open it, looking over the balcony.  Fourth floor.  Why did I get a room on the fourth floor?  I was in too much of a hurry, idiotic mistake.

            “Sherlock, open the door,” a muffled voice calls.  Mycroft.  I turn back to the door.  The sound of a card key entering the electronic locking mechanism.  No time to disable it.  I go to the bed and hasten to take the rest of the cocaine and (I’ll be frisked when I leave, someplace to hide it inconspicuously in the room, anywhere) the door opens.  Mycroft looks at me, with those jaded, disapproving eyes of our childhood, and I stand, feeling hatred towards him for it. 

            “Come, Sherlock,” Mycroft says, stepping into the room.  He is followed by two men in suits.  One of them, a younger man, aged 27, newly divorced, steps forward, and begins patting me down.  He takes the bag from my hand, and gives it to Mycroft, who doesn’t even look at it as he pockets it, but simply continues to stare at me.  “You know Sherlock, there’s a certain kind of affection that can get rather out of hand.”  I stand still, as the man beside me finishes frisking me.  “The type of affection, where one is inclined to think that their love is special, that they are the only ones who could ever possibly love their counterpart as much as they do.”

            “You’re rambling, brother,” I interject, looking away from Mycroft, staring at the wallpaper.

            “But no matter how sincere the emotion,” Mycroft continues, “it’s seldom true.”

            “Are you finished?” I ask, glancing back at Mycroft and then away again.  I see myself in the mirror.  My hair is plastered to my forehead with sweat, and my eyes are wide and constantly moving.  I remember that the first time I saw myself in this condition, I was taken aback.

            “Won’t the doctor be proud?” Mycroft sighs, and gives me a smile that stretches as far as his lips, and no further.  He turns and leaves, and I am escorted forcibly from the room, each of Mycroft’s hired hands taking one of my arms.  I walk with them, with little resistance, and suddenly, the world begins to slow down.  My mind begins to feel foggy; I can feel the puzzle slipping away into the ether. My legs begin to weigh me down, to no longer follow my will, and walking becomes a challenge.  Outside of the hotel, there’s a black unmarked car waiting.  I’m summarily forced into the back seat, across from my brother. 

            “Your foot is bleeding,” Mycroft notes, staring out of the window.  I look out of the window in suit, refusing to make eye contact.  My anger is clouded with the beginning effects of coming down from the cocaine, and I can no longer think coherently.  “Doctor Watson should be waiting, there was a car sent to pick him up and… inform him.”

            I turn to look at Mycroft abruptly.  “Where are you taking me?” I ask.

            “Home, Sherlock.  Home.” 

            The car doors are locked.  Windows are bullet proof glass, no chance of shattering them.  The sun shines over the horizon at last, and, giving up, I cover my face from the light with the collar of my coat, as my head begins to ache and London awakens. 


	8. Coming down

            “We’re here.”

            The doors click into the unlocked position.  “Do try, Sherlock,” Mycroft lectures, and taps gently on the glass divider.

            “Why?” I ask, my teeth gritted

            “Because who do you have left without Doctor Watson?” Mycroft asks.

            The door is opened, and a hand reaches in for me, the young man from before.  He takes my arm, and physically escorts me out of the vehicle and towards 221 B.  Mycroft will have already disposed of my cocaine.  The door is opened by Mycroft’s henchman and I am lead inside, and there, there is John.

            He stands to the side of the hall, worry lines stressed, a hand on his chin.  He looks at me, a single second in the eyes, and then up and down, and he rubs his temple, frowning.  Under John’s gaze, I feel like a crime scene late at night, the dirty evidence of misdeeds.  No.  I feel like the killer surveying his work and the aggrieved.  There is nothing passive here, my addiction, blood on my hands.

            “Is he using?” I hear John ask, and I am being forced up the staircase.

            “Yes,” Mycroft replies.  “I can send someone to assist you.”  John looks down, shaking his head, before my vision is cut off.  I feel the floor slip out from under me as I take a false step, but catch myself.

            I am locked without a word in my bedroom. 

            I pull up the floorboards, I search through the dust, and there is nothing.  My instruments are gone.  My syringes, my bottle, my storage for those things so necessary for the health of my mind, everything.  The window is bolted shut.  I am locked in, like an animal in a cage.

            I go to the door, and I move it back and forth, testing the lock.  It’s been dead bolted from the outside.  I begin to pace my room, my head aching.  I throw my coat on the floor.  I notice blood on the floor, why is it there, I remember.  I sit on the edge of my bed, and I peel off a damp sock.  Then I look at the other.  The fabric of the sock is stuck with coagulated blood to the wound.  I ease down the fabric to the wound, until I feel it sticking.  I lay back on the bed and wait for Mycroft to finish with John, and whatever they have to say about me.

            Mycroft will insist on urine and blood tests, as always. 

            John will comply; he will treat me as a patient.  If I’m lucky, John will be the only one looking after me and I won’t be assigned one of Mycroft’s asinine addiction specialists.  I need to get out of this room.  I need to find a way to get-

            There’s a knock on the door.

            “Sherlock?” John asks.  My mental capacities to hold up against the after effects of the drug crumble at John’s voice, and I feel myself slipping into a moment of self-loathing, why?  “Sherlock, I’m coming in.”  I cover my face with my hands, and lay, breathing slowly.

            The door opens, and John steps into the room.  “Oh christ, Sherlock.”  I let my hands down from my face and sit up.  John is standing in front of me, med kit in hand.  The foot. 

            “Go ahead,” I reply.

            “Lay down.”  I comply.  John sits on the side of the bed, his side of the bed, and begins to take out implements.  John takes my foot in his hand, and begins to cut away at the fabric with surgical scissors, muttering under his breath.  I look at his eyes as he does his work, focused, tense, and they do not look back.  Eventually, I simply stare at the ceiling.  John cleans the wound.

            “Am I to be locked in my room?” I ask.  John begins to sew my skin back together.  I twitch a toe on my other foot involuntarily.

            “For today, yes,” John says, sighing.  “We’ll decide the rest as it comes.”

            “We?” I ask.

            “Yes,” John replies, continuing his careful work.  “Us.”  John finishes, bandages my foot, and leaves the room without another look or word.  I roll onto my side, to the spot where he sat moments before on the blood stained sheets.

            I lay about 3 hours on the bed, and stare at door.  Time is fluid when coming down.  My mental capacities are debilitated, and my emotional capacities amplified.  I stare at the door and wait for something.  John.

            Waiting for John to initiate contact is agonizing.  I suppose I have to say sorry.  Cocaine.  My mind is alive with inscrutable aches and pains, and after an hour or so, I put down my violin and let my head fall back against the door.  Two to three days of estimated intense pain, followed by several weeks of major to minor cravings.  I’ve done it before. 

             Water running.  I go back to playing to pass the time. John allows me to leave to shower, and I take a urine test.  John brings in a plate of eggs and toast for dinner at 7:15, and I eat it all.  I replace my nicotine patches with two fresh ones.  When I ask for my cigarettes, John refuses and hands me a new packet of nicotine patches.

            “Cold turkey, Sherlock,” he says.  I point out that logically, allowing indulgence in my lesser addictions will make the process of rehabilitation easier.  John just shakes his head with clinical detachment, and I am back in my room.  He probably realizes that if I could, I would burn through more cigarettes than I’ve smoked this past week together.  I apply another nicotine patch.

            I sleep for a half hour and wake up, sweating, cold.  There is a cup of black tea on the bedside table.  I reach for it.  Still hot.  I wipe my face with the bed sheets, and take the tea.  I get up and go to my violin, and I sit down with it, my back resting against the door.  I retune it, and begin to pluck the strings.  I sip my tea. 

            The bedroom door shifts slightly at my back.  John is sitting leaned against the other side.  I set aside my tea, and I continue to play for a while.  “Is it the cases?” I ask.  “Is that what’s not the same?”

            “No.” John replies.  “I always thought… I couldn’t tell anyone, because they’d think I was crazy.  Then I started wondering if I was crazy, why I couldn’t move on.”  I strum chords on my violin.  “I still can’t.  Why’d you never tell me?”  I take a sip of tea, and lean my head back against the door.

            “Nobody shoots the war widow,” I reply.  “Pardon the expression.”

            “War widow,” John mutters. 

            I lean my head back against the door, and I picture John doing the same on the other side, so close.  I even my breath to match his, and close my eyes, still plucking out melody.  There’s a slight ringing in my ears, after effects.  “I spent a lot of time in Turkey,” I say.  “I started following loose threads, Moriarty’s crime network.  Travelled the Middle East for a few months.”

            “I suppose you watched me over CCTV,” John’s voice says, a little bit of laughter in it.

            “When I could,” I reply.  “The rest of the time I watched you from London.”

            “I shouldn’t be surprised, should I?  But that is amazing.”  I feel a self-indulgent moment of pride, the warmth I would feel every time you said something like this, and we both laugh.  “I was always looking for you.”  I think of the art galleries with Sarah, the moonlit walks with Janet.  The nights spent with them all.

            “Why did you always avoid 221B?” I ask, because I never understood.  “When you would walk home in the morning alone.  You visited the graveyard.”

            “This is where it all happened.  It’s, it’d be like visiting a childhood home.  Memories everywhere, not all of them welcome.”  I strum a chord.  “I kept waiting for a clue, evidence that you had been there.  Every day, I thought I’d wake up to, I don’t know.  A murder clipping on the table.  A spot on the couch, or the bed, that wasn’t quite right, or had been moved.  Every single day, I waited.”  John’s voice breaks, and I can hear his breathing harder, I can hear everything.  I put down my instrument, and I place my right hand on the floor, next to the crack between the door and the floor.

            “I’m sorry John,” I say.  There’s silence apart from John’s labored breathing.

            “I’ve spent three years trying to learn how to live without you,” John says, and I hear him wiping his eyes with a sleeve.  “You should have let me help you.”  I swirl the dregs in the bottom of my cup.  I set it aside.

            “No,” I reply.  “But I should have told you.”

            “Yeah,” John replies.  “You should’ve.”

            I feel an emptiness.  I pick a string on my violin as it lays in its case, but I don’t pick the instrument up.  We both sit in silence.  The door adjusts as John gets up and leaves his spot on the other side.  I get up and I lay down in my bed, and stare out the window.  There will be a thunderstorm tonight.

            The sky darkens.

            There’s a knock on the door.

            The bedroom door opens, and John steps in, med kit in hand.  “Sherlock, I’m going to give you your blood test,” John says.  I sit up on the bed.  John sits beside me and begins sorting through his implements.  I roll up a sleeve and hold out my arm.  Pain.  John finds a vein. 

            “I need cigarettes,” I say.

            “No Sherlock,” John replies, putting ointment and a bandage over the arm.  My hand falls to his knee.  John glances from my hand back to me.  We share a second of silence. 

            “Any tea, or anything?” John asks.

            “No,” I reply.  “John,” I start, and John looks abruptly up at me.

            “What?”

            “…My laptop,” I mumble, looking away and lifting my hand off of John’s leg.

            “Yeah, I’ll get it.”  John gets up and leaves the room.

            Thunder rolls across the sky outside, and a millisecond of white light flashes in the window, a polaroid of this moment, and I sit.  When I look to the window, I see a reflection of wild black hair, and half lidded eyes.  I tangle my hands in my hair, and pull them over my face, gripping the skin tightly, and I see what John’s seen for years.  Nothing at all.  The darkness of nonexistence.


End file.
